How Full Funnel Marketing Can Help Banks and Credit Unions Grow

James Robert Lay, founder and CEO of Digital Growth Institute, recently spoke at the CU Direct DRIVE '17 Conference in Las Vegas. After his session about "Full Funnel Marketing", he was interviewed by Mike Lawson of CU Broadcast and explained how both banks and credit unions can fully leverage digital channels to achieve their growth goals.

Mike Lawson
You just got out of a killer presentation in there about Full Funnel... I had to look at this three or four times. Full Funnel Marketing.

James Robert Lay
Say that three times fast.

Mike Lawson
No, because I'll mess up.

James Robert Lay
Yeah, Full Funnel Marketing. I think that the central piece of the methodology that we're bringing to banks and credit unions, it's... Everything that we do has to be focused on the customer journey all in that full funnel. I think a lot of times we look at traditional marketing, we see credit unions doing awareness, and they're doing purchase calls to action, but the big gap in that journey was the consideration stage of that journey.

Mike Lawson
Okay. Yeah, because this was all about kind of mapping out the consumer journey-

James Robert Lay
It is.

Mike Lawson
And how they buy things and that that type of stuff, but where do credit unions, where do they come into the mix here?

James Robert Lay
I think up to this point, credit unions, they're all... It's all the same story. They're promoting their great rates, they're promoting their amazing service. The problem with that is in the consumer's mind, the credit union, or the bank, has taken the role of the hero. You know, in any narrative, there can't be two heroes. We have really three primary characters. We have the protagonist, the hero. We have the antagonist, the villain. But the character that a lot of us don't think about is the helpful guide.

Mike Lawson
The teacher kind of thing?

James Robert Lay
Exactly. The Obi-Wan. The Mr. Miagi.

Mike Lawson
Yeah, you use that in your presentation. Yoda.

James Robert Lay
Yep. And so, that's the role that credit unions must take in this new digital growth journey. Consumers are stressed about money. Stressed about their finances. They're looking for someone to help them. I think one of the things we talked about then was, particularly with millennials, only eight percent of millennials trust banks and credit unions-

Mike Lawson
Such a low number.

James Robert Lay
For financial guidance. So, there's a lot of opportunity. But to earn that trust, trust is earned, the role that credit unions must take — particularly in their positioning and their marketing — has to not be the role of the hero. It must be the role of the helpful guide.

Mike Lawson
Right. Because education begets trust.

James Robert Lay
Exactly.

Mike Lawson
Or equates to trust.

James Robert Lay
Yeah. I mean, three questions. We look at the brain and how the brain works. We have the reptilian part of the brain, the oldest part of the brain. It's simple. Can I trust you? We have the limbic system, how do you make me feel? And then we have the neocortex. How can you help me? We can use content guidance, help first, sell second. That's how we can move beyond these great rates, these amazing services.

Mike Lawson
That's kind of a credit union's wheelhouse, is like how can we help you? We have this cool stuff, but how can we help you first, and then that's where the trust, again-

James Robert Lay
It is. I think one of the best examples that I've seen of this has not been from a credit union but from a bank. SunTrust.

Mike Lawson
Okay.

James Robert Lay
Not this Super Bowl, but Super Bowl 2016, SunTrust came out with this kind of new positioning called the OnUp Movement. When looking at how they were using this, I was like this is fascinating. It was really about helping first, selling second, guiding consumers on upwards to their hopes and dreams.

Mike Lawson
What is the main challenge to that? We were talking before the recording about, you know, a lot of people, they fall into bad habits, they realize the benefits of the help message. But sometimes we fall back into bad habits and just push product, push product, push product. What's the challenge there?

James Robert Lay
I'm not gonna call it bad habits. It's an awareness issue I think. I've had CEOs say we don't know what we don't know. Is it a bad habit? Yes. But if you become aware that there's a better way to position the credit union, then we can move in that direction. But you still have to be aware, because otherwise, that is where you can fall into those bad behaviors. I think it's also legacy systems and legacy thinking that are holding credit unions back from making this transformational process. You and I talked about this before.

There are three fears. Sometimes they're spoken, sometimes they're unspoken. But it's fear of the unknown. Like, I know we need to do this, but I don't really know how to do this.

Mike Lawson
Right. Never done this type of thing before.

James Robert Lay
Exactly. Well, we can address that. Then the next fear that we have to overcome is fear of change. So, you can show that, hey, this has actually worked before. Here are some proven results. And then move past that, it's like, okay, are you ready to commit? Yes? Well, then we have to overcome that fear of failure.

So, there's really... What we look for in this journey, and guiding banks and credit unions through is four steps. It starts with confusion. We move from confusion to clarity with training.

Mike Lawson
I like that.

James Robert Lay
Clarity then moves into commitment. And commitment moves into courage, and capability, and confidence. There's really different steps on this journey. There are some great insights from a guy by the name of Dan Sulivan, a coach who kind of talks about this. It doesn't matter what vertical you're in. They really apply. I think they apply now more than ever in financial services.

Mike Lawson
No doubt, no doubt. I took a lot of notes here, James Robert, and let's see here. Left brain, right brain, emotional needs. Humanistic marketing. Can you address that for a second? This is one of the first times I've heard this terminology. I thought you explained it really well in there.

James Robert Lay
Yeah, so when we look at great rates and service, it's all about us. It's all about the credit union. I think now we have to become more emotive. Particularly if we're talking about ourselves in our marketing, that's narcissism. It's about us. Think of it as, like, it's the selfie. But the antithesis of narcissism is empathy. Humanism, humanity should be the central focus of our message. We're dealing with people, people's lives. We have an opportunity to help them, help people move from here, where they're frustrated about money to a more positive light.

But they just need someone to show them the way. That's where credit unions can fill that gap and guide them to a better-

Mike Lawson
It's kind of like being bigger than the transaction, you know?

James Robert Lay
It is, and I think a lot of times-

Mike Lawson
Being a resource.

James Robert Lay
Yeah. And I think a lot of the time, when it comes to, like, digital, we think about technology, we think about UI, User Interface. UX, User Experience. Well, we talk about consumers, and "consumers" are still not doing justice to a person. These are people. These are humans. And at the end of the day, people do business with people. We need to bring humanity back into the digital space. I think humanity has been lost.

When we do, that we can differentiate ourselves once again. I had someone stop by and say this really ties nicely, this methodology ties nicely into purpose. We didn't even talk about purpose today, which is just a small piece of the overall... what we call this blueprint framework, which at the very bottom of the blueprint — you and I have talked about this before — the foundation of the blueprint is purpose.

Mike Lawson
Isn't it kind of like... Because, I keep going back to the humanistic things. It's storytelling. It's stories, and then stories connect us all. It's a very human thing to do.

James Robert Lay
There are only seven different ways to tell a story. Story archetypes go back to our ninth grade literature days. One of the best story archetypes that I can see credit unions use is overcoming the monster. This is one of the reasons that when we look at Hollywood there are no new stories, they're recycling because they work.

They drive the same emotions. This is ingrained in thousands and thousands of years of programming within our own minds, that we can connect with these stories on an emotive level. Not on a logical level. But on an emotive level.

People buy with their hearts, then justify that decision with their mind.

So, neuroscience has become very fascinating for us, and to kind of take some of the insights that we've learned over the past few years, and then bring those to help credit unions transform their marketing has really been a pleasure.

Mike Lawson
That's so cool that you're bringing that to the credit unions. Because a lot of credit unions don't have the resources or the time to really dive into this deeply. Maybe the bigger ones do, when they have whole a marketing department. Maybe some of the smaller ones, mid-size ones, they might not have the resources to dive into something this deep.

So, they can turn to folks like you, go hey, you know, what's this all about? How can we enhance our efforts here?

James Robert Lay
That's exactly right. The thing to keep in mind is this is a process. Just like we talked about the member journey, for credit unions, for banks, this is a process for them. It's not a campaign, it's truly... it's an organization, what we're seeing is it's almost a cultural transformation. Because you have to have buy-in at the executive level, depending on your institution sometimes the board level.

Because if you don't have that buy-in, and they're going into this thinking, oh, this is three, six, nine, twelve months, you're gonna fail. We need that buy-in first and foremost. And then you can move through each one of the steps. Move away from confusion into clarity, clarity into commitment, commitment into confidence.

Mike Lawson
Commitment is key.

James Robert Lay
One of the things that we're seeing provide a lot of value for the credit unions, the banks that we're working with, is the training program. Because it helps them to gain awareness about what the opportunities are and how to overcome some of the roadblocks that they may or may not even be aware of standing in their way.